Stray Bullet Kills Boy Watching “Wreck-It Ralph”

Mystery continues to surround the fatal shooting of a 10-year-old boy who was watching Wreck-It Ralph in a southern Mexico City theater.

Hendrik Cuacuas died two days after a November 2 shooting when he, his father and 12-year-old sister were viewing the animated Disney film, according to an continuing police investigation and local media reports.

Cinepolis, the chain owning the theater, was a Twitter top trend Tuesday.

Strangely, the boy’s father and others in the theater said that they did not hear any gunshots.

Hendrik was hit in the head by a 9-mm bullet at the theatre in the rough neighborhood of Iztapalapa, prosecutor Edmundo Garrido said Tuesday.

According to an autopsy report, the victim was shot from four to six feet away. It said that the bullet entered the front of his head. Oddly, however, the coroner was quoted as saying that the shooter was not necessarily standing in front of the victim.

The boy’s father, Enrique Cuacuas, told investigators and radio station Radio W that his son was sitting on his right side in a full theater when, roughly half an hour into the screening, he heard something whiz past his ear, then the sound of a thud. Turning to his right, he saw his son convulsing and bleeding from the head. He realized that his son had been shot.

According to ballistics expert Anselmo Apodaca, a bullet passed through the building’s laminate roof, then through a suspended ceiling, and traveled to the upper right side of the boy’s head.

Hendrik was rushed to a hospital in critical condition.

Cuacuas told Radio W that he learned similar incidents had taken place in the same theater in the past. However, he did not provide proof.

The head of Cinepolis’ legal department, Pablo Jimenez, told Foro TV that there was an incident in March, “also difficult to explain… in which a person received an injury to the foot.” He said he did not know if the injury caused by a gunshot.